Then return [your] vision twice again.[Your] vision will return to you humbled while it is fatigued – Qur'an (67:4)

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Monthly Archives: February 2013

I am quite sure the reader is aware that I have selected finance and accounting as my career and that I am currently working in a firm of chartered accountants as a part of my qualification which will guarantee (if God wills) a good salary and all other things necessary to keep body and soul together. I will just bore my reader for a while and give a brief idea of how the qualification gets completed. See, there are 6 modules from A to F , altogether consisting of 20 papers of which I have passed 12 so far. After passing 12 papers, the student has to work in a firm for three and a half years. After spending 18 months in the firm, student is eligible for appearing in module E examinations which consist of 4 papers. I will be appearing in these exams in December this year. I am also giving Chartered Institute of Management Accountants –CIMA examinations. CIMA has three levels: operational,management and strategic each having 3 papers. I have completed operational level and one paper from management and I intend to give two papers from management level this May. Hopefully I will complete the management level of CIMA and module E of CA this year, InshAllah.

Problem is I am deviated from my studies. There was a fundamental error in my thought a few days back about the profession I have chosen. It had nothing to do with the level of difficulty or the time it takes or the benefits it gives afterwards, I would have had these thoughts about any profession I had chosen , had it not been this one. I realized that all this pursuit after money and material riches doesn’t matter and the triviality of these matter made me look at them with a contemptuous eye. I lost interest in all worldly matters including my studies and profession. Whenever I was trying to deal with an issue at work or during classes I thought this is not I am supposed to do with my brain, its funny because now I laugh at myself thinking of those moments of proud carelessness. I talked to my teacher who is also a chartered accountant but instead of practising he is teaching other students. I told him I have no doubts about my ability to complete the qualification and told him what was pressing me. He told me the thought about the triviality of world is right and you have reached the right station, you still have to find your right abode but it would just create more problems if I abandon my profession and go after vague pursuits based on random philosophical thoughts. He has read a lot of philosophy though. He said the practicality of all you will is very important. If you find the things useless and trivial does that mean you should stop living? Either way you have to live your life and continue breathing that’s just how it is. Even if you want to do something that will last forever you have to do it your own and for that you need strong financial support and sound source of income. You must have a resource if you have to live in this world. You should focus on your profession until its completion, even after that, to excel in it. Then you may delve in other pursuits as well, there are no limits at all, do whatever you want, it is only sane to do this.

Of course he was right. I was strayed.

So I made up my mind that this and the coming year, I shall force, that’s not the right word, I shall develop my professional skills to a great extent so that later on I just have to do little work to keep myself updated. I am sure I have no doubts about my abilities to learn.

So I decided to put it into writing so that I could remind myself again and again that this year and the next are very vital for the future.

So I must get a letter in my hand later on from people I have benefited.

Dear Safdar, Thank you for realizing and doing what was right!

Yours Truly

Older Safdars

This year and the next, I shall endeavour to work hard for future myself and I will likely abandon getting involved in any other matter for a while to a great extent. That means reading too. Specially, reading. Remember. Two months are already lost. But its never too late.

I cannot recall when this stupid idea sneaked into my brain. I went to a shop in Urdu Bazaar, Karachi one day after my CIMA exam few months ago, an old old shop, it smelled of old books and yellow pages, that wonderful smell which refreshes the senses of an old-book lover. I spotted a book in the corner of the shop at the top shelf titled ‘1910’, dusty and stained. I picked it up and read the preface:

I wrote this collection of essays when I was eighteen years old. Those days were awaiting a paradigm shift in my actions and thoughts and my disposition to the daily life activities. I was always at the verge of discovering something, almost falling off the cliff of uncertainty into the valley of truth and reality, the dim light flickering,struggling against the darkness, the dark abyss standing over the weak flame like a mother looking angrily at the child while he is making his earliest moral decisions. I was always excited about something that was bound to happen, something amazing. Something hung over my life, some shadows followed me all day. It is impossible to remember all the thoughts that creep in to your mind, I often wondered about the possibility of it happening in reality, some mad scientists might make a device which could record all the ideas that are born in your mind or that find a way into it from outside and reproduce them into an understandable format..

That would suffice.

I went home and thought about it. I called my friend and told him about an idea. He laughed hard at its stupidity, saying ‘So ja bey!’

I couldn’t sleep. I was restless. The idea kept buzzing inside my head like a bee. I thought about how I might be able to console myself, for it is in my traits that I do what I think of and an idea of this intensity demanded a strict action to justify my trait. At last a solution struck me. I will incessantly write whatever comes in my head for 12 hours and that will give me a specimen of all thoughts that I would otherwise easily forget. I took a pen at that instant and started writing without stopping for straight 3 hours. It was an unforgettable event and I really enjoyed. The pattern was so random and unanticipated, I was surprised at my abilities. I felt I could easily control the subject of my thoughts but sometimes few subjects forced themselves, I could not do anything.To state all that I wrote in those three hours would bore and disgust most readers. Here are the last lines:

i have been holding the pen for so long now it hurts my fingers , his car looks better than his face the ugly nose and rough skin are not his wife is beautiful over the shimmering sea full of roses coloured the purple colour , so ja bey, i havent looked at her ample bosom it always shows up instantly ever but that was not what i could not do so ja bey and the pirates have never had two complete eyes inside their heads the movie was not great his wife doesnt even deserve him i want to have a best dream tonight, she isnt even married the wife how could she be so ja bey the mosquito full of roses both curves are perfect all mattered was the age it doesnt even matter the age isnt the thing that mattered ever again and again impossible social union a thing of beauty is a joy forever it hurts when the impossibility of an idea shows you your inability, then the sky is the limit the sky of your own little earth i could never find her at all its almost three hours but she is beautiful more than the unfortunate wife a rose with dewy petals